reality-based educator

Randi Weingarten is possibly the stupidest labor leader in the history of labor unions.

She told reporters at a conference in Denver that she is afraid the tentative contract agreement between NYC teachers and the city will be voted down by teachers because Chancellor Klein gloated in a blog about how bad the deal is for teachers before teachers have agreed to the contract! Weingarten told reporters Klein had broken the cardinal rule of negotiating and should have waited until AFTER the contract was ratified by the membership before gloating!!!

Here's the story from the Daily News, in full:

Will this picture derail the teachers contract?
BY JOE WILLIAMS and KATHLEEN LUCADAMO


DENVER - United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is worried that teachers will vote down their new contract - and she's blaming this hug.

"On Monday morning [when the deal was announced], I was confident. Now I'm not so sure," Weingarten told reporters Saturday night at a conference here sponsored by the Hechinger Institute on Education and Media.

Weingarten said that when Chancellor Joel Klein insisted on hugging her and pecking her on the forehead at the City Hall announcement last week, he made her look like a patsy to her 80,000 members.

Then he made things worse, she charged.

Klein "gloated" in a blog that the contract makes sweeping changes to teacher work rules, Weingarten said.

Weingarten said Klein "broke the cardinal rule" of negotiations by opening his mouth before teachers approved the deal.

A spokesman for Klein denied the chancellor bragged or gloated.

"From day one, the chancellor has said this is a win for our kids and for our teachers," said spokesman Jerry Russo.

About 1,000 union delegates will vote on the deal at the Brooklyn Marriott tomorrow - and they're expected to okay the contract.

But Weingarten is worried that rank-and-file teachers will reject it when they get to vote later this month.

The fight is expected to be so down and dirty that the hotel told the union to hire extra security to handle any unruly protesting teachers at the hotel tomorrow.

The union will comply and foot the bill but still isn't sure of the price tag or how many guards will show up, sources said.

The deal was supposed to be a giant political score for Mayor Bloomberg, who did not want to head into next month's election without settling the contract. Teachers had been working without a contract since May 2003.

But the proposed pact is turning out to be unpopular with teachers, who have been vocal about their unhappiness.

Under the four-year agreement, teachers will get 15% raises - but in exchange for givebacks, including working a longer day and a longer year. They may have to go back to patrolling hallways and lunchrooms, which parents love but teachers hate.

They also must forfeit the right to fight disciplinary letters that principals place in their files.

Weingarten said many teachers are concerned that the proposal gives too much power to incompetent and uncaring principals.

"My members don't trust the principals," Weingarten said.

There is always grumbling about contract deals, but this time around, the anger seems stronger.

"I'm upset about the unprecedented givebacks," said Skip Delano, a social studies teacher at Brandeis High School in Manhattan who plans to protest the vote. "We'll do all we can to encourage other teachers to hold out and try to get the administration to give up on the givebacks."

Delano joined a handful of protesters outside the union's lower Manhattan headquarters last week when the executive assembly - about 100 top UFT bosses - approved the contract. Only five rejected it.

If a majority of delegates okay the deal tomorrow, all 80,000 teachers must vote on it. The tally wouldn't be complete until after Election Day, union officials said.

It's been 10 years since teachers last rejected a pact that had been approved by their union leaders. In 1995 it took teachers another five months to settle on an agreement, which wasn't radically different from the one they rejected.

Despite Weingarten's concerns, education experts predicted teachers won't gamble this time.

"They are not going to get any better and they are not going to strike. It's a good contract. It's going to pass," said Seymour Fliegel, president of the Manhattan watchdog Center for Educational Innovation.

This article should be heartening to opponents of the tentative contract agreement Randi agreed to with the mayor last week.

First, the union leadership is worried it will go down to defeat.

They should be worried.

The more teachers learn about the contract agreement, the less they like about it. The UNITY caucus hacks and cronies are in full spin mode over the contract and are attacking any opposition to the tentative agreement as "naysayers" and "malcontents" who would hate any contract pact.

But the reality is, many real working teachers who teach five periods a day and grade papers and write lesson plans and work their professional duties hate this contract.

The UNITY cronies and union leadership, many of whom haven't seen the inside of a classroom since the Dinkins administration, want the contract to pass because their political careers are on the line. Plus they don't have to work under these odious contract provisions.

But if the UNITY hacks and cronies were to to come out from under the patronage rocks they currently inhabit and talk to the teachers who will have to work under the new contract concessions, maybe they would realize why the opposition to this contract is so vehement.

Because it is a bad deal that quite simply trades seniority transfers, Circular 6R rights, grievance rights, days, time, and a sixth class for a 14.25% salary hike over 52 months (about 3.2% a year.)

This is not even a cost of living increase and yet Randi has agreed to all of these concessions for this bullshit amount of money.

That, dear UNITY hacks and cronies, is why real working teachers hate this contract so much.

Second, Randi Weingarten knows this contract is a bad deal.

She specifically says this in the Daily News article when she chides Klein for gloating about the sweeping work rules changes in the tentative agreement that he can't wait to use on teachers.

She says he should have waited until after the contract was ratified before gloating.

Rather than defending the work rules changes or challenging Klein's characterization of them, she simply takes him to task for letting the cat out of the bag.

Randi Weingarten has just provided all of the evidence needed to prove she sold New York City teachers down the river for her own political interests.

She knows this contract is a sell-out, yet she is pushing it down the throats of the membership with an all-out hard sell and a huge propaganda outreach.

Instead of wasting her energy trying to sell a bad contract deal to members, she should have rejected the PERB report recomendations and started work on negotiating a fair deal for teachers.

But she decided to sell teachers out instead.

Third, Randi complains that Chancellor Klein made her look like a patsy by hugging her and kissing her on the forehead.

No he didn't, Randi. You made yourself look like a patsy by agreeing to this abomination of a contract. The public hug and kiss was nothing more than a public acknowledgement of what many of us in the UFT already know about you: you're in bed with the Bloomberg administration and are literally willing to deal with the devil in order to further your own political interests.

The "hugs and kisses" photo is the perfect symbol for the real relationship between the UFT leadership and the city.

Fourth, the media is starting to acknowledge that this contract could go down to defeat.

All we heard in the press last week was how the contract would be ratified despite the misgivings of some in the union.

Now the press coverage has turned. The media has heard the misgivings about the contract within the rank-and-file turn to rumblings of real anger and discord. The media are beginning to ignore the UFT spin and cover the real story here - that a huge part of the union rank-and-file want to vote this contract down.

Finally,the opposition to this contract is gathering steam.

Just seven days after the tentative contract agreement was made public, the union leadership is publicly worrying that the pact will go down to defeat, the UFT propagandists and Edwize "bloggers" are in desperate spin mode, and the anger within the rank-and-file is growing stronger, not weaker.

The press is starting to acknowledge this contract agreement can be rejected. The union leadership is starting to acknowledge that this contract agreement can be rejected.

So let's get to work proving both the media and the union leadership right.

Let's reject this contract agreement.